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The thesis consists of an introduction and three studies, which are comparative sociological and institutional analyses of a number of countries' publicly regulated vocational education and training systems at upper secondary and post-secondary level. Official regulation of programme content and curricula - the main empirical material - is interpreted, and focus is directed on aspects which distinguish between, among others, general and vocational elements of teaching, learning and training. The analyses employ concepts from educational studies, historical sociology and institutional sociology with the aim of conceptual elaboration and illumination of similarities and differences between cases. Study I compares upper secondary vocational education and training programmes in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The programmes are analysed and compared with respect to scope, sequence and selection of curricular units of subject matter and periods of training. Programmes combine general and vocational elements in various ways, thereby offering choices for obtaining both the occupation-related qualification, as well as higher education eligibility. The combination of curricular units with additional subject matter seems to, in some cases, lead to emerging learning aims. Study II focuses on vocational education and training systems at upper secondary level in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and seeks to identify differences and similarities by conceptualising features of ideal types along different dimensions. It furthermore develops a method of analysis and visualisation which enables more accurate understanding of how various learning aims are designed within educational programmes. Some of the results indicate that the resources necessary for attaining the full, intended educational qualification are not guaranteed in any of the three cases; however, this applies particularly to apprenticeship-based programmes, where it can be attained only after training contracts with status-like features, resembling parts of occupational jurisdictions, are seized within sheltered circumstances. In the school-based programmes, a larger proportion of resources are guaranteed, but training is shorter and less vocationally oriented. Vocational education and training programmes in all three systems orient learning not only towards vocational, but also general learning aims. Study III compares admission criteria to post-secondary vocational education and training programmes in Denmark and Sweden, focusing on the Danish erhvervsakademi and the Swedish yrkeshögskola. Options, as elements of life chances, for individuals holding upper secondary vocational education qualifications who wish to apply for admission to these programmes, differ in terms of scope between the two cases. In the Swedish case, options are wide and mostly structured by course-based admission criteria; while in the Danish case, options are more narrow and structured by qualification-based admission criteria. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>

Doctor Educationis / The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between identity and differential academic performance in a cohort of preprimary teachers-in-training. The study draws on indepth interviews with, and detailed observations of, nineteen students and five of their lecturers at a college of education in Cape Town in the late 1990s. Through an analysis of the narratives of academic performance of these students, this work argues that students constructed narratives of academic performance framed by their expectations of what they considered possible for people of their particular identity. Thus as a consequence, students who shared common identities and social locations tended to share common narrative threads. This was most evident in the way in which three broad narrative perspectives emerged - framed by shared social locations of race, class, and gender, and common understandings of religion and cognitive ability. However, within each broad grouping .individual agency nuanced how each student interpreted his or her personal history and particular social locations through the discourses to which he or she had access. This work presents a. challenge to the dominant metaphor of reproduction in the field of educational studies. It is clear from analysis of the students' narratives that as active agents they were not unproblematically reproduced by the teacher college as classed, raced, and gendered subjects. Rather, they produced themselves within existing, and often potentially contradictory, material and discursive contexts. In explaining differential academic performance, this work examines the way in which narrative understandings introduce people into particular ways of life through their authorial voice and legitimating functions. More specifically, it explains how subjective narratives of academic performance introduce students into particular social actions that result in 'objective' differential academic performance as recorded on year-end mark schedules. However, in selecting narrative analysis as a conceptual framework for the work, it has been possible to motivate for an explanation that goes beyond an analysis of academic achievement and failure. In successive chapters evidence is marshaled to frame an argument that students' narratives shape their social action as agents of history, and are implicated in the distribution of privilege within society. The framing of the research question was premised on the assumption that a relationship exists between educational outcomes and access to life chances. While evidence is presented that signals how subjective narratives of academic performance are 'lived out' as 'objective' academic performance, a linear relationship between marks as academic performance and life chances is raised as problematic. It is argued that rather than merely shaping academic performance, narratives as theories of social reality frame all understandings of the social world including access to socio-economic privilege. It is these understandings that get 'lived out' in the choices that students make about their futures. A significant thread to the argument is the extent to which lecturers are implicated in the narrative understandings that students construct, and consequently in the unequal distribution of privilege in society. While seeking to explain academic performance, the study comes to the significant conclusion that narrative understandings, rather than academic performance, are implicated in the distribution of privilege in society.

過去，我們常以旁觀者的觀點出發，以局外人的角度設想身心障礙者所面對的問題，對身心障礙者的了解十分有限。不當的對待或歧視，往往限制了身心障礙者的生存機會，使其處於弱勢中的弱勢，導致身心障礙者及其家庭陷於重重困境之中。 鑒於過去研究對於身心障礙者之統計資訊的缺乏，以及個案分析難以釐清人口群之特徵，本研究著眼於解析障礙圖像，並以不同生命階段可能面對之危機及重要生命事件做為切入的角度，探討身心障礙者在過去三十餘年生存機會與社會適應之差異。由於公務統計之資訊無法呈現細部的障礙者生命歷程，本研究輔以身心障礙國民生活需求調查資料，釐清導致障礙的時點對障礙者可能產生的影響，並分析其需求與福利資源之契合度，以檢討政策施行對身心障礙者造成行為或生存機會的改變。 研究使用民國101年（2012）內政部統計處社會經濟資料庫，以及衛生福利部之統計資訊為主，透過地理資訊系統的呈現，描繪出身心障礙者的分布狀況，以及資源分配的情況。有關生存機會的差異，採用民國99年人口及住宅普查全臺閩地區資料與民國100年身心障礙者生活狀況調查原始資料相互對照，以不同生命歷程作為主要的軸線，釐清障礙者與非障礙者的生存機會（就學、就業、婚育）與多元差異。 研究發現，都會區的障礙人口龐大，偏鄉、山地區域的障礙人口佔總人口比例卻十分驚人。身心障礙者之教育程度較低、成為非勞動力的比例較高，此外，身心障礙者較一般人不易進入婚姻，在進入婚姻後，又曝露於更高的離婚風險。從不同致障時間來看，先天致障者面臨較低的教育、婚育機會，但是在就業部分沒有較大的差異；智能障礙者、慢性精神病患者面臨各種機會的弱勢，然而，兩者致障的時間卻有不一樣的情境；自閉症則是在婚育機會中與智能障礙者同等弱勢，但是在教育和就業面向則有較好的表現。 研究建議，障礙發生的時程反映不同的情境，如以同一套的處遇模式，是無法滿足障礙者的需求。在地方資源分配不均的情況下，應考量福利介入最佳的時點與資源，改善身心障礙者不利的處境，增強其社會適應之可能。 / In the past, misunderstanding of people with disabled resulted in improper treatment or discrimination. This perspective of an outsider vision limited their life chances, and their families were caught in a predicament. Given the lack of previous studies for the disabilities of statistical information, as well as case studies is difficult to clarify the characteristics of population groups, this study focuses on displaying maps of disability, and exploring different life courses in which people may be in face of crisis and major life events. Since the official statistics of the information cannot render detail of life course, researcher supplemented by survey data, to clarify the impact on the time of becoming disabled, to analyze the fitness of welfare resources and needs, and to review the implementation of the policy. Research on the use of the Republic of China 101 years (2012) at the Ministry of the Interior statistics socio-economic database, as well as the Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics information mainly through geographic information system, depicting the distribution of people with disabilities, and the distribution of resources. Researcher also use the data of Republic of China 2010 Population and Housing Census in Taiwan and Fujian area, and 2011 Physically and Mentally Disabled Citizens Living and Demand Assessment Survey to clarify differences life chances about education, employment, marriage and child rearing. The study found that a large number of people with disability live in urban area; however, the proportion of disability is alarming in mountainous regions and rural area. People with disability are lower educated, have less chances to become labor forces. In addition, compared with people without disability, people with disability have less chances to get married. Even getting married, they are easier to be divorced. People born to be disabled are lower educated, have less chances to get married and to have babies, compared with those who are not born to be disabled. People with mentally disability and chronic psychosis face disadvantaged opportunities, but their time of being disabled are totally different. People with autism and mentally disability have less chances of getting married and having babies, but the former with higher educated and higher chances to be employed. Research suggested that the time of becoming disability reflecting different situations. As a result, we have to concern the life course and timing of becoming disabled, and to provide appropriate resources for people with disability. Owing to uneven distribution of resources, we should consider the welfare of the best intervention point with the right resources to improve the well-being of people with disability and enhance their social adaptation.

Föreliggande avhandling har som syfte att belysa, analysera och diskutera hur unga människor berättar om sina erfarenheter av att tvingas bryta upp från sitt hemland och börja om i ett nytt land under sin skolgång. Åtta unga vuxna, fyra kvinnor och fyra män, deltog i livsberättelseintervjuer kring detta tema. Den teoretiska referensramen innefattar begreppen identitet i det senmoderna samhället, identitet som berättelse samt globaliseringens olika villkor i form av kategorierna turister och vagabonder, där de förstnämnda har tillgång till världen och de sistnämnda stängs ute. Vidare tas upp begreppet livschanser, vilket berör relationen mellan människors mål och ambitioner och deras möjligheter att realisera desamma. Resultatet presenteras dels i en tematiserad del, dels i en del där tre av deltagarnas berättelser presenteras som profiler. Den tematiserade delen presenterar hur deltagarna berättar om att komma till Sverige, om att börja skolan, och om att skapa ett liv här. Huvudresultaten i denna del rör upplevelser av den första tiden i Sverige, språket som en nyckel, skolans roll, familj, vänskap och identitet samt deltagarnas förhållningssätt till dessa aspekter i berättelserna. Ur några av deltagarnas berättelser uttolkas också mer tydliga strategier, och dessa fokuseras tillsammans med identitet ytterligare i den andra resultatdelen genom tre profiler, vilka har benämnts utanförskap som identitet, en kluven identitet och aktivitet som identitet. I avhandlingens diskussion behandlas metodologiska överväganden, därefter vidtar en resultatdiskussion vilken fokuserar på aspekter av uppbrottets konsekvenser i relation till de teoretiska begreppen livschanser, vagabonder, risk/tillit och identitet. Här behandlas också olika verktyg för identitetsskapande i berättelserna samt hur identiteter berättas i materialet.   Den övergripande slutsatsen är att det inte är fruktbart att betrakta invandrare eller flyktingar som en homogen grupp. Deltagarna i föreliggande studie liknar varandra i stor utsträckning, och det finns likheter mellan deras berättelser, men de berättar också om skilda erfarenheter, förhållningssätt och identiteter. Detta ger liv åt, och empiriskt grundat stöd för, det slitna uttrycket ”vi måste se till individen”, också när det gäller barn och ungdomar med erfarenheter av att kommit till Sverige som flyktingar. / The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to illuminate, analyze and discuss life stories told by young Swedes about their experiences of being up-rooted and forced to leave their home countries and make a new start in a new country during their school years. Eight young adults participated in life story-interviews around this theme. The theoretical framework entails the terms identity in late modernity, identity as story, and the conditions of globalization here represented by the categories tourists and vagabonds, where the first have access to the world and the latter are left out. Furthermore the concept of life chances is used, which is concerns the relation between people’s goals and ambitions and their possibilities to realize these goals. The findings of the study are presented in two chapters. The first is a thematic analysis and the main findings here are experiences of the first meetings with Swedish society, language as a key, the role that school plays, family, friendship and identity and how the participants relate to these aspects in their stories. Some of the stories are interpreted as having more clear strategies, and these are focused along with identity in the second findings chapter.  Here, three profiles are presented as being an outsider as identity, a torn identity and activity as identity. The discussion of the thesis addresses certain methodological considerations and then turns to discuss the findings. This discussion focuses on aspects of the consequences of being up-rooted in relation to the theoretical concepts life chances, vagabonds, risk/trust and identity. Different tools for the construction of identities in the stories are also discussed, as well as how identity can be seen as synonym to telling a story.   The overall conclusion is that it is not fruitful to talk about immigrants or refugees as a homogeneous group. The participants in this study are alike in many ways, and while their stories have mutual traits, they also tell the tale of differing experiences, approaches and identities. This gives life, and empirically grounded support, to the worn out phrase “every child is an individual”, also when it concerns children and young people who have experienced arriving in Sweden as refugees.